Summary

Traditionally, agricultural professionals have had a pessimistic view about the future and viability of organic agriculture (OA). Such views may be because OA represents a new ‘paradigm’ in agriculture. This study assessed the current state of views of Australian agricultural professionals in public bodies towards OA and biotechnology and considered how increased OA knowledge and experience influences attitudes. One of the key findings was that professionals who have increased OA knowledge are more likely to be positive towards the innovation, as well as being more likely to be negative towards biotechnology. Overall, views towards OA amongst professionals seem to be slowly changing, indicating that organics as a new ‘scientific paradigm’ may be becoming more accepted.

The paper presented here is the final paper submitted by the authors to the conference Researching Sustainable Systems. The final edited papers are available with the following publication: Köpke, Ulrich; Niggli, Urs; Neuhoff, Daniel; Cornish, Peter; Lockeretz, Willie und Willer, Helga, (Hrsg.) (2005) Researching Sustainable Systems. Proceedings of the First Scientific Conference of the International Society of Organic Agriculture Research (ISOFAR), Held in Cooperation with the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) and the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture, Australia (NASAA), 21 – 23 September 2005, Adelaide Convention Centre, Adelaide, South Australia.. Research Institute of Organic Agriculture FiBL, CH-Frick, and International Society of Organic Agriculture Research (ISOFAR), c/o Institute of Organic Agriculture (IOL), DE-University of Bonn. http://orgprints.org/4013/ Distribution: Paper copies may be ordered from FiBL at a cost of 28 Euros plus mailing costs (see FiBL shop at http://www.fibl.org/shop); FiBL order number 1394. A PDF version is available free of charge for ISOFAR members via the member area of www.isofar.org.